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Joined: March 21 2008
Location: Tigerstaden
Status: Offline
Points: 34050
Posted: May 24 2011 at 07:32
harpagroom wrote:
I don't really dig why people tend to hail 90125 a pop(ular) stuff. It does contain some wonderful hooks as Rogerthat puts it. A real youthful, freshy, exciting listening almost all through. The meaning of "progressive" has been changing through time: in the late 60s / 70s it was long, complex, philosophical tracks mingling with jazz, like Formentera Lady, Supper's Ready and Close To The Edge; in the 80s it was shorter gags and songs with more discipline (!) and abstract power (Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson) mingling with the new wave, now it is also Mars Volta and DJ Krush in a way. And by the way, some pre-90125 Yes pieces like Turn of the Century are not popular and twee..? Dear 70s-fans, just listen to the brilliant, crazy, provocative Mr. Rabin guitar solo on Owner of a Lonely Heart!!! P.S. Can anybody tell me what the hell is AOR influence? I love abbreviations!
influence from adults which are oriented towards rock, and rock that most obvous atract only adult listeners, vry few kids will wnjoy lisning to it becouse it is to adulted,and mature.
Joined: July 02 2008
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 14256
Posted: May 24 2011 at 08:38
It was my first YES album and I worked my way back to their 70s material from there. Great albums in the 70s bury 90125 but it still holds up as a radio friendly gem.
Joined: February 17 2004
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 146
Posted: May 26 2011 at 10:09
I look at 90125 as being precisely the right response to the times. The audience had changed, and the whole culture was trying to move on from the sixties and seventies. So, the aesthetic was hyper-modern and minimalistic, the musicians cut their hair all spiky, and everyone was wearing pseudo-military breakdancer clothing.
Yes proved that the same spirit and vision could be embodied inside the conventions of the 80's. If I somehow believe that the mellow 70's should have gone on for another 10 years, then I am filled with the inconsolable longing for impossible things. But "Close to the Edge" was never coming again, and in it's context, Yes showed themselves to be just as relevant as Survivor and Duran Duran.
The video for "Owner of a Lonely Heart" brilliantly illustrates the theory behind the album, actually, with the protagonist struggling within the confines of a black-and-white authoritarian regime to break free and fly. The only way to do it is to jump over the edge!
The real mistake came later on, when Yes attempted to repeat this formula in the 90's. When the electric dreams of the 80's proved just as ephemeral as the hippie utopia of the 70's, the culture was adrift, and musicians still trying to prop up the discredited beast called popular music brought well-deserved scorn upon themselves.
In short, the 80's were a time to pretend to be something other than yourself. Yes and Genesis and King Crimson did so, quite artfully. But when the 90's came, anything that smelled even faintly of inauthenticity was brutally dismissed.
sad creature nailed upon the coloured door of time
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 9869
Posted: May 26 2011 at 12:03
freyacat wrote:
The real mistake came later on, when Yes attempted to repeat this formula in the 90's. When the electric dreams of the 80's proved just as ephemeral as the hippie utopia of the 70's, the culture was adrift, and musicians still trying to prop up the discredited beast called popular music brought well-deserved scorn upon themselves.
In short, the 80's were a time to pretend to be something other than yourself. Yes and Genesis and King Crimson did so, quite artfully. But when the 90's came, anything that smelled even faintly of inauthenticity was brutally dismissed.
This is not strictly pertinent to the topic but at what point does being authentic also begin to make for boring and somewhat lifeless music? There's an element of playing a part and of suspension of logic in a lot of art. It is necessary sometimes if you want the music to grab you and shake you up because the reality you inhabit is quite evidently not so stirring as to constantly shock you and excite you. Carefully studied approximations of reality are not going to interest a lot of people at the end of day because art is not a left brained pursuit for all constituents of its audience.
To that end, I always felt the 70s were much, much livelier than the 90s and I am now beginning to question the 'conventional wisdom' that the 90s were better than the 80s. I am trying to think of a blockbuster pop equivalent of Purple Rain from the 90s and have so far drawn a blank. If anything, the 90s reinforced the wholly artificial distinction between high art and low art and worse still made this divide well entrenched in popular music forms like rock. And as I referred to earlier, the pursuit of authenticity only led to a cynical dismissal of eminently apt modes of expression and robbed a good deal of life out of music. Of course, there were still plenty, plenty great albums from the 90s and I too count many 90s albums amongst my favourites.
Joined: December 05 2007
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 2720
Posted: May 27 2011 at 05:57
It's hard to underrate an album that gets trampled on enough anyways. Apart from that it's a great album in its own right and only loses out when compared to previous albums. Quite unfair, really. I always have the feeling that later Yes albums are all treated as the inferior b-sides of CttE.
Joined: April 02 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 202
Posted: May 27 2011 at 06:52
The_Jester wrote:
It's too popish. Not a lot of prog in this album. It's not bad but not proggie enough for Yes.
I don't necessarily buy this pop is bad, rock is good attitude. There is good pop and bad rock. The real problem with 90125 is more specifically that there is too much AOR influence and that's one genre I really cannot stomach.
Joined: April 26 2005
Location: Belgium
Status: Offline
Points: 10616
Posted: May 27 2011 at 09:51
I do think it is the most underrated Yes - album. I think 90125 is quite brilliant, een though it's not as "progressive" as the '70's albums. I think it's more underrated than the first two Yes albums, which are also fantastic, but those albums get a higher rating than 90125.
Joined: May 28 2011
Location: NH
Status: Offline
Points: 344
Posted: May 29 2011 at 16:02
If someone were to describe it basically to me:
80s, dance music, disco, etc. I would say, "no thanks", and would be pretty much sure that I wouldn't like it.
However, I heard two songs from it on a compilation cd, and despite being all of those things that I don't like and is undeniably cheesy, I say that it is undeniably creative too!
I hardly even know what disco is, but my guess is that 90125 is about as progressive and disco can be.
Joined: October 28 2008
Location: Wales
Status: Offline
Points: 13260
Posted: May 30 2011 at 05:13
N-sz wrote:
If someone were to describe it basically to me:
80s, dance music, disco, etc. I would say, "no thanks", and would be pretty much sure that I wouldn't like it.
However, I heard two songs from it on a compilation cd, and despite being all of those things that I don't like and is undeniably cheesy, I say that it is undeniably creative too!
I hardly even know what disco is, but my guess is that 90125 is about as progressive and disco can be.
90125 bears as much relation to disco as I do to a sexy supermodel.
Joined: April 26 2005
Location: Belgium
Status: Offline
Points: 10616
Posted: May 30 2011 at 08:38
lazland wrote:
N-sz wrote:
If someone were to describe it basically to me:
80s, dance music, disco, etc. I would say, "no thanks", and would be pretty much sure that I wouldn't like it.
However, I heard two songs from it on a compilation cd, and despite being all of those things that I don't like and is undeniably cheesy, I say that it is undeniably creative too!
I hardly even know what disco is, but my guess is that 90125 is about as progressive and disco can be.
90125 bears as much relation to disco as I do to a sexy supermodel.
I think the disco link is there because Jon Anderson sings "move yourself; you are the steps you take" in Owner Of A Lonely Heart
Just joking, as was Vibrationbaby who brought up the disco thing, I think.
I do think Steve Howe is at least right for some part when he says that the emphasis on '70's Yes was melody, and the emphasis of '80's Yes was rhythm. He's not completely right, but not completely wrong, too.
Joined: July 20 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ USA
Status: Offline
Points: 6756
Posted: May 30 2011 at 14:34
Upon careful consideration, I actually believe that "Fragile" may be the most under-rated Yes album. The thing is amazing, yet usually gets passed up in discussions for CTTE and TFTO.
"South Side of the Sky"....whew!! This is the album where Yes really threw out the stops for the first time.
Joined: September 15 2010
Location: Finland
Status: Offline
Points: 2082
Posted: May 30 2011 at 17:21
cstack3 wrote:
Upon careful consideration, I actually believe that "Fragile" may be the most under-rated Yes album. The thing is amazing, yet usually gets passed up in discussions for CTTE and TFTO.
"South Side of the Sky"....whew!! This is the album where Yes really threw out the stops for the first time.
Couldn't agree more! South Side Of The Sky introduced Yes to me and guided me to prog music. Just love that album!
Joined: June 18 2009
Location: Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 12608
Posted: May 30 2011 at 22:53
I too love Fragile and South Side of the Sky. It's my favourite Yes ablum along with CttE. Fragile get's somwhat bashed because of the "solo" cuts, but I don't really find them so annoying. Wakeman's bit isn't great, but it isn't terrible either, and it's short enough not to bother (but certainly, he could have done much better than that and elevate Fragile even higher); We have Heaven, well, I actually like it, and it's even shorter than Wakeman's bit; Five Percent for nothing, well, for me that's pretty terrible, but half a minute, that doesn't do any harm to the album at all; The Fish is actually great, as far as I'm concerned, and for me Long Distance runaround isn't complete without that other song following it; and Mood for a day is actually a really cool piece of acoustic guitar playing.
Joined: May 22 2011
Location: Mother Russia
Status: Offline
Points: 18
Posted: May 31 2011 at 14:15
rogerthat wrote:
freyacat wrote:
The real mistake came later on, when Yes attempted to repeat this formula in the 90's. When the electric dreams of the 80's proved just as ephemeral as the hippie utopia of the 70's, the culture was adrift, and musicians still trying to prop up the discredited beast called popular music brought well-deserved scorn upon themselves.
In short, the 80's were a time to pretend to be something other than yourself. Yes and Genesis and King Crimson did so, quite artfully. But when the 90's came, anything that smelled even faintly of inauthenticity was brutally dismissed.
This is not strictly pertinent to the topic but at what point does being authentic also begin to make for boring and somewhat lifeless music? There's an element of playing a part and of suspension of logic in a lot of art. It is necessary sometimes if you want the music to grab you and shake you up because the reality you inhabit is quite evidently not so stirring as to constantly shock you and excite you. Carefully studied approximations of reality are not going to interest a lot of people at the end of day because art is not a left brained pursuit for all constituents of its audience.
To that end, I always felt the 70s were much, much livelier than the 90s and I am now beginning to question the 'conventional wisdom' that the 90s were better than the 80s. I am trying to think of a blockbuster pop equivalent of Purple Rain from the 90s and have so far drawn a blank. If anything, the 90s reinforced the wholly artificial distinction between high art and low art and worse still made this divide well entrenched in popular music forms like rock. And as I referred to earlier, the pursuit of authenticity only led to a cynical dismissal of eminently apt modes of expression and robbed a good deal of life out of music. Of course, there were still plenty, plenty great albums from the 90s and I too count many 90s albums amongst my favourites.
Wise words. Truely - what was mainstream formula of sound which Yes could theoretically apply to their music in the 90s?
Nirvana? Prodigy? Spice Girls? Metallica?
There were melting of mainsream to many-many-many short streams, which ended up in our times lethal crisis of music industry.
Neoprog? But Yes is the prog.
So I think that they were right in 90s.
As to album - it's overrated if you are knew all Yes discography - there were much more impressive albums.
It's underrated if you are too deep in 70s Yes, cause there were impressive songs on 90125 - riffs in "Owner", vioce play in "Leave It"... This music could bring joy to art- prog-rock fan.
And it's correctly noted - for many listeners 90125 opened the world of Yes.
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